Stay
by EveLGW
Summary: "Again she found herself suspended and floating between hello and goodbye, only this time she was the one who was about to leave and he was asking her to stay." (G/S)


Title: Stay  
Author: Eve (little_grey_woman42@yahoo.de)  
Keywords: GSR, angst, post-ep  
Rating: (P)G  
Spoilers: Cool Change  
Disclaimer: Not mine.  
Summary: "Again she found herself suspended and floating between hello and goodbye, only this time she was the one who was about to leave and he was asking her to stay."  
Author's note: A rather pathetic attempt of mine to get over my writer's block. Sorry if this sucks.  
  
  
Stay  
by Eve  
  
  
The case was solved.  
  
Holly's killer would spend the rest of his life in prison.  
  
But it was hardly surprising that every single one of the five CSIs standing on the parking lot felt no satisfaction despite this knowledge. A door slammed shut. The police-car drove away. Holly was still dead and nothing would change the fact that her four ex-colleagues still felt responsible for what happened.   
  
"Let's go home," she heard Grissom say and the small group started to disperse. Case closed. Time to move on. 'If it only was as simple as that.' Sara sighed and grasped her bag a bit tighter. 'Home.' She wasn't surprised at the bitter aftertaste the thought left behind. She had come to Las Vegas because he'd needed and asked for her help. She'd tried hard not to think about the reasons for her decision, paradoxically both painfully simple and complicated at the same time. When his call had come and he'd asked for her she hadn't given it a second thought - and soon she would have to deal with the aftermath that would follow when she was back in San Francisco. But right now that the case was over ... there was really only one thing left to do.  
  
'Time to move on indeed.' Without looking back she turned around and started to walk towards her rental. A quick glance at her watch told her that she would have to hurry in order to catch her last minute flight.   
  
"Sara!" Feeling an irrational urge to postpone the conversation that she knew was about to take place, she slowed down but only stopped when she reached the car. She'd hoped to get away without having to talk to him alone, without having to tell him good-bye but as she listened to his approaching footsteps behind her she knew that she wouldn't be that lucky. She took a deep breath and turned around to face him.  
  
"Hey." She tried to smile but failed miserably. Watching him look over her shoulder into the car she saw his eyes widen when he spotted her small suitcase on the back seat. Then his gaze shifted and finally focused on her. His facial expression was neutral but his eyes ... her skin began to tingle all over and she felt something tug at her, felt the familiar pull as their eyes met. Time slowed down, came to a halt and for a few seconds she spent an eternity lost in his gaze only to feel it crack and shatter when he blinked and turned his head, breaking the connection. Shaking her own head slightly in an attempt to clear her thoughts and fighting an intense feeling of loss, she felt her pulse quicken and cursed him and herself for the power he still seemed to have over her.   
  
"Where are you going?" he implored, and the slightly accusatory undercurrent in his voice made her at the same time frown in confusion and feel the urge to turn her head in order to look out for a one-way mirror.   
  
"Home," she answered curtly, still not quite sure her voice wouldn't betray her if she ventured for more words than just one at a time. Repeating his former statement she knew that even if it wasn't a lie it definitely wasn't the truth either. San Francisco may have been the place where she lived and where she worked but it surely wasn't 'home', not these days anyway. Actually it had been a long time since she had a place that she felt she could call 'home'. Another thing she tried not to spend too much time thinking about. But her job usually kept her busy or rather she'd made it her business that it was that way. Maybe her approach wasn't very healthy but it worked and kept thoughts like that at bay. At least most of the time.  
  
"Back to San Francisco," she heard him say. A statement, not a question. Still she wasn't sure what to make of the hint of accusation she believed to detect in his voice, his eyes, his posture. So once again she went back and reviewed the facts. He'd asked her to come to Las Vegas because he needed her help and she did. Now she was about to leave again just like they'd planned. Echoing her thoughts she replied: "Yeah, that was the plan," finally trusting her voice enough to leave the security of monosyllabic responses. Just a few more seconds and she would be out of there, on her way to the airport. Back to her own life. Whatever that was supposed to be.  
  
Grissom averted his gaze again and remained quiet, obviously for the moment lost in his own thoughts. The silence stretched and moments turned into seconds, slowly but surely ticking away. Freed from his trademark scrutiny for the time being she allowed herself to abandon her rigid posture and relaxed slightly against the black frame of the car, warmed by the early morning sun.   
  
Working together with him, bouncing off theories and talking about science had always been the easy part. It was something they never spoke about but somehow they just ... clicked. And it felt so right that they never wondered or questioned why they were able to finish each other's sentences right from the start, why most of the time they thought so alike that outsiders had difficulties to follow their conversations. She thought about the first time she'd attended one of his guest lectures at Harvard, the rush and excitement she had felt when she'd finally approached and spoke to him. Remembered late-night-till-early-morning discussions about old and recent cases over half-filled cups of forgotten coffee at random diners that had taken place whenever he was in the area, first Harvard, later San Francisco. Remembered the one case they had finally worked on together and the reason those discussions had stopped.   
  
That thought was enough to snap her out of her reverie and she once again looked at her watch, then at the man in front of her. Moving to open the car door she said: "Look, Grissom, I've filed the report, the case is closed and I've got a plane to catch, so if you -"  
  
"Stay."  
  
She froze. A wave of memories so strong that it took her breath way overcame her and swept her away, swept her back to another time and place. Again she found herself suspended and floating between hello and goodbye, only this time she was the one who was about to leave and he was asking her to stay.  
  
She tried to shrug the surreal feeling off and swallowed heavily.  
  
"What?" she croaked, fighting to keep the swirl of conflicting emotions out of her voice.  
  
"Stay," he repeated calmly.   
  
"Stay where?" The question was out of her mouth before she could stop herself. "With -" 'you?'  
  
"With the Las Vegas crime lab. We have the second best crime lab in the states and we're short one CSI. You're one of the best and we could really use your skills here, Sara." She thought he sounded like a commercial.  
  
Straining to keep her voice calm she unconsciously mimicked his tone. "You - you're offering me a job?" she asked him, pushing her emotions for the time being out of the way in an attempt to grasp the meaning of his words.   
  
"I'm offering you a chance to become part of my team, yes," he told her again with that matter-of-fact tone in his voice.   
  
'But not a part of your life.' And to her it made all the difference.  
  
"I'll have to think about it." She gave him a brief albeit forced smile and unlocked the car door with shaking hands, praying he wouldn't notice. Grissom didn't move from his spot and out of the corner of her eyes she watched him frown. Without thinking about it she went through the motions, dropped the bag on the passenger's seat, sat down behind the wheel, checked the rear mirror, fastened the seat belt. When she finally closed the door and was about to start the engine, he approached the driver's door, bent slightly down and looked at her through the window. Staring straight out of the windshield before her, her hand still wrapped around the key she waited for his reaction, her thoughts once again returning to that one evening three years ago.  
  
After they'd wrapped up the case in San Francisco, on the day before he was about to return to Las Vegas she'd thought that they'd been on the same page. Thought that he'd felt it too. For the first time taking the next step had actually felt like a natural progression to her. A progression of something she'd believed they were already sharing. So she had jumped off the cliff. Only when he had taken that last step away from her and had left her apartment without saying another word or even looking back at her she had realised her mistake. And she had also realised the difference between imagination and reality. In her imagination the impact she had felt when the door closed quietly behind him would have killed her. In reality she had to live with the pain. Perhaps he hadn't understood what she was asking, what it meant to her. Perhaps she should have said more, should have told him what she was thinking. 'Stay with me. Not only for now, not only for the night but for ever.' Perhaps she should have said less and simply kissed him. Perhaps she had been too greedy because she'd wanted it all. Perhaps it had been too soon and he hadn't been ready. Perhaps she'd misread him completely and he'd never been interested in her at all. Whatever it was that had gone wrong that evening, it was the last she'd heard and seen from him for three years until his phone call. 'So many unanswered whys indeed.'  
  
"Sara, if you don't want to stay because of me, I -" he faltered. Intrigued by what she thought was the first display of real emotion since she had arrived she turned around to face him and watched him with fascination searching for the right words. 'Right words for what?' she wondered. For convincing her to stay? Since when exactly were those supposed to be the *right* words? But wasn't that against the agreement she believed they had silently made when he asked her to come and she said yes?  
  
To accept his offer and to move to Las Vegas ... No matter how tempting his offer might be career-wise, she knew that a job had been the last thing on her mind when she'd listened to him on the phone. When she'd accepted the temporary assignment at Las Vegas she'd hoped that maybe they could move past what had happened - or rather didn't happen - in San Francisco. Maybe salvage what was left of their friendship. Maybe even tentatively start over again. But this ... was just too much. It was tempting fate. It was against the plan.  
  
The plan ... Suddenly it occurred to her that they'd actually never spoken about what would happen when the case was solved. Preoccupied with pondering his request and already trying to analyse what little information he'd given her on the phone she'd never asked him what would come afterwards. She'd just assumed that she would leave again and during the past couple of days he hadn't given her any reason to question that assumption. Not once. Up to now.  
  
Maybe she hadn't been the only one who had been busy making assumptions. Judging from his reaction, from the look of irritation still present on his features - had he thought that once she was there she would simply ... stay?  
  
"We could really use you here. I - the lab needs someone like you." She looked down at the steering wheel, hands now grasped tightly around the worn leather. She closed her eyes resisting the urge to rest her head against the wheel. The slip didn't go without her notice and she couldn't help but wonder whether he actually knew what he had just said. When she didn't answer he sighed almost inaudibly and made a step backwards, away from the car. Away from her. Without realising it she instinctively reached out and laid a hand on his arm. Caught by surprise he gasped, his head snapped up and when their eyes met there was a tiny moment when his well-worn mask slipped. And it was only then that she realised that maybe she wasn't the only one who had trouble to move on, that maybe it had really been just a case of bad timing. That maybe she wasn't the only one who was afraid of what could happen, not because there was a lack of but rather an abundance of emotions.  
  
As he regained his balance, she tried to do the same. She thought about their initial conversation on the phone, thought about the past couple of days, thought about his offer. But mostly she thought about his reaction when she touched him. It pained her that he thought he had to keep his guard up around her even though they'd known each other for several years now and she once considered them to be friends. But she knew that if she wanted this to work she would have to do the same. She didn't know whether she would be able to do it, to keep her distance but she would try because that tiny glimpse behind the veil gave her hope. Hope for the future. And that was way more than her old life in San Francisco was able to offer her.  
  
So she decided to stay. To stay with the lab but more important to stay with him, hoping that maybe one day they'd really be on the same page, praying that when that day came they wouldn't hesitate too long, wouldn't let their chance slip away. 


End file.
